Community Driven Prioritization of Customer Issues

ABSTRACT

Community driven prioritization of customer issues is described. In an implementation, a selectable portion of a user interface providing interaction with a community forum is selectable by a user to indicate agreement and associate with a posting in the community forum. The user may then automatically be provided results generated in response to the posting. In another implementation, associations matching a plurality of users and postings are utilized to assign priority to the postings and to prioritize responses to the postings.

BACKGROUND

Increasingly, groups of users are using network based community forumsto engage in back and forth discussions (threads) which may addressalmost any topic. A variety of community forums such as message boards,discussion threads, web logs (blogs), and the like are available tousers over a network via applications such as browsers, instantmessaging, email, chat, or the like. Using these community forums a usermay make a posting which is exposed to the community or group of users,who may then respond to the original posting creating a thread. In someinstances, community forums are used for support of services orproducts, or to otherwise get support or advice. Thus, postings in aforum may be directed at particular problems with services or productsand may seek advice, answers and solutions from the community and/or theowners and support staff associated with the forum.

One technique traditionally technique for users to receive results orresponses to a posted message, problem, or question required the user tomake positive contact such as by continually checking back to the forumto view any answers or replies. Further, in traditional forums, otherusers accessing a posting may have the same or similar problems. Howeverthese users have not been able to easily indicate they are experiencingthe same issue as described in a particular post. For instance, untilthe users made an individual posting there was no record that the userwas experiencing a problem addressed in another users post. Thus, eventhough many users may have the same problem as described in particularposting, these users may be forced to submit another post to be trackedand/or to manually navigate back to a particular post to know when thereare any related results.

Thus, it may be time consuming and inefficient for users to get resultsusing traditional community forums. Further, it may be difficult for theowner or manager of a forum to determine which users have commonproblems, which problems occur most frequently, and to provide aresponse efficiently to a plurality of user having the same problems.

SUMMARY

A community driven prioritization of customer issues is described. In animplementation, a user interface providing interaction with a communityforum is formed having at least one selectable portion corresponding toa posting, which when selected indicates agreement with the posting andassociates a user with the posting. The user may then automatically beprovided notification of any results (e.g., answers, instructions, orfeedback) generated in relation to the posting. In anotherimplementation, a service gathers data describing associations between aplurality of users and postings based on selection of correspondingportions of a user interface which are selectable to cause associationof a user with the respective posting. The data may then be analyzed bythe service to produce results, to determine how many and which usersare associated with a posting, and/or assign priority to the postings.

This Summary is provided to introduce a selection of concepts in asimplified form that are further described below in the DetailedDescription. This Summary is not intended to identify key features oressential features of the claimed subject matter, nor is it intended tobe used as an aid in determining the scope of the claimed subjectmatter.

BRIEF DESCRIPTION OF THE DRAWINGS

FIG. 1 is an illustration of an environment in an exemplaryimplementation that is operable to employ techniques for communitydriven prioritization of customer issues.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a system in an exemplary implementationshowing a service provider and client of FIG. 1 in greater detail.

FIG. 3 is an illustration of an exemplary implementation showing a userinterface of FIG. 2 in greater detail.

FIG. 4 is a flow diagram depicting a procedure in an exemplaryimplementation in which a provider of a community forum stores dataassociating users with postings in the community forum and providesnotification of results based on the associations.

FIG. 5 is a flow diagram depicting a procedure in an exemplaryimplementation in which postings in a community forum are prioritizedbased upon association of users interacting with the community forum.

FIG. 6 is an illustration of an exemplary user interface that isoperable to obtain data to store associations of users with postings ina community forum as described in the procedure of FIG. 5.

FIG. 7 is a flow diagram depicting a procedure in an exemplaryimplementation in which a client, in response to user selection of aportion of a user interface, communicates data to a service sufficientto associate the user with corresponding postings in a community forum.

FIG. 8 is an illustration of an exemplary user interface that isoperable to employ one or more techniques for community drivenprioritization of customer issues described herein.

FIG. 9 another illustration of an exemplary user interface that isoperable to employ one or more techniques for community drivenprioritization of customer issues described herein.

The same reference numbers are utilized in instances in the discussionto reference like structures and components.

DETAILED DESCRIPTION

Overview

Forums are used for community based support of technical problems, toanswer everyday questions, for discussion threads and so forth. In thecourse of a network based thread in a community forum, a variety ofusers may discuss problems, questions, thoughts, feelings, and so forthfor numerous topics. Traditionally, users having similarity with oragreeing with a posting they are viewing have not been able to easilyexpress that they agree with a particular posting, that they have thesame problem, would like to associate with the posting, and so forth.Further, owners or managers of a forum have not been able to efficientlytrack which users have similar posts or problems, which issues orproblems are most frequent, or to easily provide results to users havingcommon issues or problems

Accordingly, techniques for community driven prioritization of customerissues are described in which, a selectable portion is provided alongwith one or more posting in a community forum. Selection of the portionmay cause the selector (client, user and/or account) to be associatedwith the corresponding posting. The portion may include an identifyingprompt such as “agree”, “me too”, “associate” and so on. Thus, a user byselecting the portion indicates of agreement with the content of thecorresponding posting, such as having the same question, issue orproblem, agreeing with the posting, or otherwise indicating similarityor association with the posted message.

Further, by selecting the portion users are automatically associatedwith a posting and designated (e.g., signed-up, or subscribed) toreceive results, feedback, and/or updates which may subsequently begenerated for the posting. The association may occur based onauthentication of the user to a corresponding account and withoutadditional user input other than selection of the “agree” portion of theuser interface. For instance, access to the forum may involveauthentication of the client and/or user. Thus, the identity of theclient/user may be known to the service providing the forum and when theportion is selected, the client/user may be associated with the postingbased upon authentication data such as an account id, username, emailaddress, and so forth.

A service may then reference stored associations of users with postingsto provide notification of results (e.g., instructions, answers, and soforth) to each of the associated users when the results are generated inresponse to a posting. Notification may occur in a variety of ways suchas via email, instant messaging, voicemail, desktop alerts (“toast”), aswell as other suitable modes of communications.

In an implementation, data collected by a service from numerous clientsand/or users is utilized to assign priority to postings (or to issuesdescribed by the postings) in a community forum. In an implementation,selection of a portion provided with a posting causes the association ofa user to the posting to be stored (e.g., store user identity matched tothe posting) and also updates or increments a counter related to theposting. Thus, the service may determine from the stored data how manyand which users/clients have associated with a posting, and may assign apriority accordingly. Based upon the priority, technical support staffmay determine or be alerted regarding the order in which to respond orproduce results related to postings.

In the following discussion, an exemplary environment is first describedthat is operable to techniques for community driven prioritization ofcustomer issues previously described, as well as other techniques.Exemplary procedures are then described which may be employed by theexemplary environment, as well as in other environments.

Exemplary Environment

FIG. 1 is an illustration of an environment 100 in an exemplaryimplementation that is operable to employ techniques for communitydriven prioritization of customer issues. The illustrated environment100 includes one or more clients 102(n) (where “n” can be any integerfrom one to “N”) communicatively coupled over a network 104 to one ormore service providers 106(m) (where “m” can be any integer from one to“M”).

The clients 102(n) may be configured in a variety of ways for accessingthe service provider 106(m) and resources provided by the serviceproviders over the network 104. For example, one or more of the clients102(n) may be configured as a computing device, such as a desktopcomputer, a mobile station, an entertainment appliance, a set-top boxcommunicatively coupled to a display device, a wireless phone, a gameconsole, and so forth. Thus, the clients 102(n) may range from fullresource devices with substantial memory and processor resources (e.g.,personal computers, game consoles) to low-resource devices with limitedmemory, processing and/or display resources (e.g., traditional set-topboxes, hand-held game consoles, wireless phones). For purposes of thefollowing discussion, the clients 102(n) may also relate to a personand/or entity that operate the clients. In other words, one or more ofthe clients 102(n) may describe logical clients that include users,software, and/or devices.

Although the network 104 is illustrated as the Internet, the network mayassume a wide variety of configurations. For example, the network 106may include a wide area network (WAN), a local area network (LAN), awireless network, a public telephone network, an intranet, and so on.Further, although a single network 104 is shown, the network 104 may beconfigured to include multiple networks.

The service providers 106(m) are each illustrated as having a pluralityof services 108(s) (where “s” can be any integer from one to US“) thatare accessible via the network 104. The services 108(s) may beconfigured in a variety of ways to provide functionality over thenetwork 104 to the clients 102(n). For example, the services 108(s) maybe configured for access via platform-independent protocols andstandards to exchange data over the network 104. The services 108(s),for instance, may be provided via an Internet-hosted module that isaccessed via standardized network protocols, such as a simple objectaccess protocol (SOAP) over hypertext transfer protocol (HTTP),extensible markup language (XML), and so on, further discussion of whichmay be found in relation to FIG. 2.

A wide functionality may be made available via the plurality of services108(s). For example, a web search 108(1) service (e.g., a search engine)may be provided to search the Internet, an email 108(2) service may beprovided to send and receive email, and an instant messaging 108(3)service may be provided to provide instant messaging between the clients102(n). Additional examples include a news 108(4) service, a shopping(e.g., “ecommerce”) 108(5) service, and a web log 108(6) service.Further, productivity 108(7) services may also be provided, such as wordprocessing, spreadsheets, presentations, drawings, note-taking, and soon. For instance, network access may be given to the client 102(n) toapplications that were traditionally executed locally on the client102(n) itself. Therefore, execution of the application modules may beperformed remotely at the service provider 106(m) and results of theexecution may be communicated over the network 104 to the client 102(n).

A community forum 108(8) service may also be provided to permit clients102(n) to engage in a variety of interactions with a community forum(e.g., message board, discussion thread and the like). Clients 102(n)make new postings (e.g., questions and comments) to the forum seekingfeedback from other members or users of the community forum. Thepostings are exposed to the community via the service 108(8) such that aplurality of clients 102(n) may interact with the posting includingsearching and viewing postings of other clients in the community, replyto postings, obtain answers or feedback on the postings and so forth.Postings may also be categorized according to a wide range of topics anda particular forum may be arranged to include one or more topics, suchas sports, computers, health, finance In accordance, with techniquesdescribe herein a user interface formed to provide the interactions withthe community forum may include a selectable control associated withand/or adjacent to one or more posting, which is selectable to associatea client 102(n) with the posting and to express agreement with theposting, further discussion of which may be found in relation to FIGS.2-9 below.

An authentication service 108(9) may also be provided to authenticateclients 102(n) to access other services, which may include otherservices provided by the service provider 102(m) as well as otherservices provided by other service providers. While depicted asincorporated with a service provider 106(m), authentication service108(9) and/or services 108(s) may also be provided as stand-aloneservices, further discussion of which may be found in relation to FIG.2. Although a few examples of services have been described, it should beapparent that a wide variety of other services are also contemplated.Further, service providers 106(m) may range from those providing asingle one of services 108(s) up to including an entire suite ofservices 108(s).

The service provider 106(m) is also illustrated as having a servicemanager module 112, which is representative of functionality used by theservice provider 106(m) to manage access to the services 108(s) over thenetwork 104, performance of the services 108(s), and so on. Althoughillustrated separately, the functionality represented by the servicemanager module 112 may be incorporated within the services 108(s)themselves. The service manager module 112, for instance, may beutilized to generate a user interface 114 that is provided over thenetwork 104 to the client 102(n) to enable the client 102(n) to interactwith the services 108(s). For example, the user interface 114 may beoutput through use of a communication module 116(n) that is executableon the client 102(n) to render the user interface 114, and moreparticularly data used to form the user interface.

Additionally, the service manager module 112 may manage a plurality ofaccounts 118(a) (where “a” can be any integer from one to “A”), each ofwhich represents data that is utilized for interaction by the clients102(n) with the plurality of service 108(s). For example, the account118(a) may correspond to a particular client 102(n) and includeauthorizations 120 which indicate services 108(s) with which the client102(n) is permitted to interact. The account 118(a) may also includeauthentication credentials 122 such as account identifiers, username,passwords and so forth used to authenticate the client's 102(n)identity. A wide variety of other client data 124 is also contemplated,such as account preferences, user profiles, settings, and so on.

Generally, any of the functions described herein can be implementedusing software, firmware (e.g., fixed logic circuitry), manualprocessing, or a combination of these implementations. The terms“module,” “functionality,” and “logic” as used herein generallyrepresent software, firmware, or a combination of software and firmware.In the case of a software implementation, the module, functionality, orlogic represents program code that performs specified tasks whenexecuted on a processor (e.g., CPU or CPUs). The program code can bestored in one or more computer readable memory devices, furtherdescription of which may be found in relation to FIG. 2. The features oftechniques for community driven prioritization of customer issuesdescribed below are platform-independent, meaning that the techniquesmay be implemented on a variety of commercial computing platforms havinga variety of processors.

FIG. 2 is an illustration of a system 200 in an exemplary implementationshowing the service provider 106(m) and the client 102(n) in greaterdetail. In FIG. 2, the service provider 106(m) is illustrated as beingimplemented by one or more servers 202(x) (where “x” can be any integerfrom one to “X”) and the client 102(n) is illustrated as a clientdevice.

The server 202(x) and the client 102(n) each include a respectiveprocessor 204(x), 206(n) and respective memory 208(x), 210(n).Processors are not limited by the materials from which they are formedor the processing mechanisms employed therein. For example, processorsmay be comprised of semiconductor(s) and/or transistors (e.g.,electronic integrated circuits (ICs)). In such a context,processor-executable instructions may be electronically-executableinstructions. Alternatively, the mechanisms of or for processors, andthus of or for a computing device, may include, but are not limited to,quantum computing, optical computing, mechanical computing (e.g., usingnanotechnology), and so forth. Additionally, although a single memory208(x), 210(n) is shown, respectively, for the server 202(x) and theclient 102(n), a wide variety of types and combinations of memory may beemployed, such as random access memory (RAM), hard disk memory,removable medium memory, and so forth.

As previously described, the services 108(s) of FIG. 1 may be configuredin a variety of ways to provide functionality over the network 104 tothe client 102(n). For example, the services 108(s) may be provided viathe service manager module 112 and/or one or more sub modules associatedwith one or more of the services 108(s) which may be configured asInternet-hosted modules accessed via standardized network protocols.

For example, in FIG. 2 the service provider 106(m) is configured toprovide at least a community forum service 108(8). Accordingly, servicemanager module 112 is depicted as including a community forum 212 modulewhich represent functionality to provide the community forum service108(8) to clients 102(n) via the network 104. Both the service manager112 and community forum 212 modules are illustrated as being executed onthe processor 204(x) and are storable in memory 208(x). Community forummodule 212 may also be provided as a stand-alone module separate fromthe service manager module 112.

The community forum module 212 when executed, further representsfunctionality, to manage a variety of community forum data 214, accessto and interactions with the community forum data 214, analysis andresults of the data, associations based on the data, and so forth. Inaddition, the community forum module may be configured to form a varietyof notice and/or alert messages 216, based upon the community forum data214, which may be communicated to recipients such as clients 102(n),users, accounts 118(a), forum owners or managers, and so forth via thenetwork 104. Notice/alert messages 216 are depicted as storable inmemory 208(x). Users may receive the notice/alert messages 216 via oneor more clients 102(n) configured to receive, access, and/or downloadthe notices via network 104 as represented by notice/alert message 216depicted in phantom in memory 2 10(n) of client 102(n).

The community forum data 214 is depicted as storable in memory 208(x) ofserver 202(x) and may include a variety of postings 218 from clients102(n) such as questions, comments, and so forth; associations 220 whichdescribe relationships between and/or match clients 102(n) and thepostings 218; results 222 such as answers, instructions, and so forthwhich may be generated in relation to postings 218; counters 224 whichkeep track of how many clients 102(n) are associated with correspondingpostings; and various other 226 community forum data such as replies topostings, community ratings for postings and/or results, priority dataassociated with postings, topics and/or categorization data forpostings, and so on. Notice/alert messages 216 may be configured in avariety of ways and sent by a variety of communication modes tocommunicate results 222, priority data associated with postings, and/orother notice, reports, and alerts generated based on analysis ofcommunity forum data 214, to one or more designated recipient or groupof recipients, further discussion of which may be found in thediscussion of FIGS. 3-9.

In FIG. 2, community forum module 212 is further illustrated as forminga user interface 114 which is configured to provide interactions withcommunity forum data 214 to clients 102(n) via network 104. Communityforum module 212 may provide data sufficient to form a user interface114. This data may be communicated over the network 104 to the client102(n) and used by the communication module 116(n) which is illustratedas being executed on the processor 206(n) and is storable in memory210(n)) to output user interface 114′.

Interactions provided via a user interface 114 may include inputting newposts 218, updating the data 214, searching the data 214, replying topostings 218, forming associations 220 with postings, and so on. In oneor more implementation associations 220 are formed upon a selection of aportion in user interface 114 corresponding to a posting 218 andselectable to cause formation and storage of the association between theselector (client/user) and the posting. The user interface 114′ may beconfigured in a variety of ways to provide this interaction, furtherdiscussion of which may be found in relation to the following figure.041 As previously discussed, a service may also be provided as astand-alone service. For example, an authentication service 108(9) isdepicted in FIG. 2 as a stand alone service provided by a server 228configured for network 104 access and that has a processor 230 andmemory 232. The authentication service 108(9) includes an authenticationmanager module 234 that is executable on the processor 230 toauthenticate the client 102(n) using authentication data 236. Forinstance, the client 104(n) may provide a name and password which isauthenticated by the authentication service module 224 using theauthentication data 236. When the authentication is successful (i.e.,the client 102(n) “is who they say they are”), the authentication mangermodule 234 may pass a token to the client 102(n) that is used by theclient 102(n) to access services 108(s) of the service provider 106(m).The token may also be used to access other services by other serviceproviders such that the client 102(n) is not forced to re-authenticateto access each of the plurality of service providers 106(m).Authentication service 108(9) may also be configured to manage theaccounts 118(a) corresponding to one or more service providers 106(m).Thus, using a stand alone authentication service 108(9), theauthentication and account management functionality may be offloadedfrom the service providers 106(m) and one authentication service 108(8)may provide this functionality concurrently to many service providers106(m). A variety of other examples are also contemplated.

FIG. 3 illustrates an exemplary implementation 300 showing the userinterface 114 of FIG. 2 in greater detail. The user interface 114provided by the service provider 106(m) in this instance is illustratedas incorporated within a user interface 302 provided by thecommunication module 116(n). For example, the communication module116(n) may be configured as a browser that includes a menu bar 304 andan address bar 306. The menu bar 304 is a portion of the user interface302 that includes drop-down menus of commands, examples of which areillustrated as “file”, “edit”, “favorites”, “tools” and “help”. Theaddress bar 306 is configured to receive inputs to navigate toparticular network addresses and/or display current network addresses,from which, the client 102(n) has received content and is beingdisplayed. Other communication modules 116(n) such as instant messaging,email, and so forth are also contemplated.

The user interface 302 also includes a user interface 114 formed fromdata obtained via the network 104 from the service provider 106(m) andwhich provides interactions with a community forum, e.g., interactionwith community forum data 214. The user interface 114 formed from theservice provider 106(m) data includes a topic portion 308 that includesrepresentations of different topics or separate forums (e.g. categories)which a clients 102(n) may interact with. For instance, topic region isillustrated as listing topics available from the service provider102(m), examples of which are illustrated as “Forum A”, “Forum B”,“Forum C”, “Forum D” each of which may have subcategories or topics suchas Topic 1, Topic 2 and Topic 3 listed under “Forum B”. Thus, topicportion 308 may provide functionality to navigate to particular forums,topics, and postings and so forth in the community forum.

A community forum may be arranged for community discussions regardingone or more of a wide variety of topics such as home improvement, news,sports, finance, politics, shopping, consumer protection, computers,technology, and so forth. In FIG. 3, the user interface is illustratedas navigated to “Topic 2” which may correspond to discussion related tolawn care. Naturally, numerous topics and sub topics may be employedwith the described techniques without departing from the spirit andscope thereof.

In one or more implementation, a community forum is arranged as atechnical support forum to provide support for technical problemsassociated with a product and/or service. In one implementation acommunity forum is provided for support of computing device relatedsoftware and hardware products, such as personal computers and/orcomputing devices such as handheld device, phones, laptops, desktopcomputers, servers, and so forth. In this arrangement, in addition tosupport from the community of users replying to posting, the owner ormanager of the forum (e.g., technical support staff or designee) mayutilize the forum to disseminate feedback (e.g. answers, instructions,results) which are configured to address or troubleshoot problems orissues with software (for example, application modules), hardware (e.g.computing devices), settings and configurations and so forth which aredescribed in postings. Further discussion of community forum configuredto support products and service such as computing device relatedsoftware and hardware products may be found in relation to FIG. 7.

The user interface 114 formed from data obtained from the serviceprovider 106(m) also includes a search portion 310 that is operable toreceive characters (e.g., text) input by a user to perform a search,such as searching community forum data 214 for particular topics and/orpostings 218. Items found as a result of the search may then bedisplayed elsewhere in the user interface 114. For instance, theillustrated user interface 114 includes a postings portion 312 fordisplaying postings 218 input by clients 102(n) to the community forum.The displayed postings 218 may be the results of navigating via topicsportion 308 or searching via search portion 310. The community forumservice 108(8) also provide functionality for making new posting 218which may be accessed via a selectable new post portion 314.

The postings portion 312 as illustrated in FIG. 3 may display aplurality of postings 218, which may be related under a particulartopic, for example in the “lawn care” in the depicted case. A viewer maythen interact with the postings 218, such as reading, responding and soforth. In certain cases, and in particular when a problem, issue, orquestion is described in a posting 218, the viewer may experience thesame or similar problem or have the same question. The viewer mayaccordingly wish to express this agreement and to be associated with theposting 218 such that they are notified of results (answers, feedback orinstructions) provided in response to the posting, in particular fromtechnical support staff or designees. Further, the service provider106(m) and/or forum owner may wish to know how many and which user areexperiencing particular problems or issues, so that the most pressingissues may be resolved and feedback provided to the users.

Accordingly, to implement community driven prioritization of customerissues, an agree portion 316 associated with one or more posting 218 maybe provided in a user interface 114 configured for interactions with acommunity forum. The agree portion 316 may be selected by a user toexpress agreement with the posting and or to cause an associationbetween the user and the posting to be communicated to the serviceprovider 106(m) and/or forum owner. Agreement with the posting as usedherein may mean that the user has the same problem or question, agreeswith a statement made in the posting, or otherwise wishes to expresssimilarity or association with the posting. While the agree portion 316is depicted as having the prompt “Agree” an variety of other prompts arecontemplated such as “associate”, “me too”, “same issue” and so forth.

Further discussion of utilizing agrees portions of a user interfaceconfigured for interaction with a community forum to associate userswith postings in the community forum may be found in relation to thefollowing figures.

Exemplary Procedures

The following discussion describes techniques for community drivenprioritization of customer issues that may be implemented utilizing thepreviously described systems and devices. Aspects of each of theprocedures may be implemented in hardware, firmware, or software, or acombination thereof. The procedures are shown as a set of blocks thatspecify operations performed by one or more devices and are notnecessarily limited to the orders shown for performing the operations bythe respective blocks. In portions of the following discussion,reference will be made to the environment 100 of FIG. 1 and the system200 of FIG. 2.

FIG. 4 depicts a procedure 400 in an exemplary implementation in which aprovider of a community forum stores data associating users withpostings in the community forum and provides notification of resultsbased on the associations. During the discussion of the procedure 400 ofFIG. 4, reference will also be made to an exemplary implementation 300of a user interface shown in FIG. 3.

A user interface is formed which is configured to expose a communityforum to a plurality of clients. (block 402). For example, the client102(n) may execute a communication module 116(n) configured as a browserand navigate over the network 104 to a network address of the serviceprovider 106(m). The client 102(n) may also provide authenticationinformation, such as name and password, to authenticate the client's102(n) identity. The service provider 106(m) and in particular communityforum module 212 may be executed to provide community forum service108(8) including formation of an interface 114 for interactions with thecommunity forum. In particular the interface may be utilized to exposecommunity forum data 214 to a plurality of clients 102(n) via network104. The client 104(n) may then receive data that is used to form a userinterface 114 and output the interface via communication module 116(n)to interact with the community forum, such as to view a variety ofpostings 218 of the forum.

A selectable portion is provided in the user interface associated with aposted message which is selectable by a user to indicate agreement withthe posting and to associate with the posting. For example, the userinterface 114 of FIG. 3 includes agree portions 316 which may beassociated with one or more postings 218 displayed in the postingsportion 312. In FIG. 3 the agree portions 316 are arranged adjacent to acorresponding posting, however a variety of other arrangements may alsobe employed. A user “Bob” via communication module 116(n) of a client102(n) configured as browser may navigate to the displayed postings viainterface 114 which is incorporated in the user interface 302 of thebrowser. “Bob” may read the first listed posting (#990) which describesa question from “Adam” asking for suggestions on lawn fertilizer. “Bob”may have the same or similar question and accordingly may select theadjacent agree portion 316 to express agreement (e.g., “I have the samequestion”) and to associate with the posting.

Upon selection of the portion corresponding to a posting, data is storedto associate the user with the posting (block 406). For instance, when“Bob” selects the agree portion 316 corresponding to posting #990 in theprevious example, the communication module 116(n) of client 102(n) mayrespond by communicating data to the service provider 106(m) toassociate “Bob” with the posting. The community forum module 212 mayreceive the data and utilize the data to from and store an association220 matching “Bob” and posting #990 as community forum data 214.

“Bob” for instance may be “signed in” to an account 118(a) managed bythe service provider 106(m) or authentication service 108(9). Thus, theservice provider 106(m) may know the identity of “Bob” and thecorresponding account 118(a). Thus, authentication data 236 and/oraccount data corresponding to “Bob” and the account 11 8(a) may beutilized to associate Bob and/or the account i 1 8(a) with the posting218. For instance an identifier of the user, or an account 118(a) suchas a user id, account id, credentials (username and password),authentication token, tickets, or other client data such as an emailaddress, instant messaging contact, and so forth may be obtained basedon the account 11 8(a) used by “Bob” and provided to the serviceprovider 106(m) to associate “Bob” with the posting. The association maythen be used by the service provider 106(m) to contact “Bob”, e.g. tonotify “Bob” in reference to the posting 218, e.g. to send annotice/alert message 216 indicating or including results 222 for thepositing 218 to “Bob” or the corresponding account 118(a) Theassociation of “Bob” with the posting 218 occurs upon selection of theportion 316 and without “Bob” inputting additional data, e.g.,automatically and without user input of credentials, personalinformation (contact data), or the like.

Further, selection of the agree portion 316 indicates and is interpretedas an expression by “Bob” that he agrees with the posting. Thus, inaddition to storing the association 220 the community forum module 212may be configured to record “Bob's” agreement such as by updating orincrementing a counter field 224 configured to track the number of usersagreeing with a posting, having the same problem described in a posting,and so forth. Thus, for Bob's selection of the agree portion 316 may beaccounted for by a counter 224 associated with the correspondingposting.

Results responsive to the posting are generated (block 408). Forinstance, service provider 106(m) may compile data from a plurality ofclients 102(n) associating users with postings 218. The data may be usedto determine priority of issues or questions based on the associationsmade by user of the community forum, further discussion of which may befound in relation to FIG. 5 below. Results 222, such as answers toquestions, instructions for addressing a problem, comments, notes, andso on may be generated by the service provider 106(m).

These results for instance may be produced by a technical support staff,which may include one or more designated super users or communityexperts, enlisted to provide results, forum owners or mangers, serviceproviders, product teams, customer support, and so on. Results 222 referto answers and so forth generated by the service provider 106(m), ownerof the forum, or a designee such as enlisted super user or experts asdistinguished from replies posted in the forum from the generalcommunity. Thus, the results 222 are backed by some level of authorityfrom the provider of the forum. In the previous example, one or moreexpert on lawn care may be enlisted by service provider 106(m) to reviewthe postings and to produce results 222, which may be input viacommunity forum module 212 as community forum data 214. As an exampleresults in response to posting #990 may be a recommended brand or typeof fertilizer or other instructions related to a posted question. Theresults 222 may be disseminated to users via the community forum, suchas by updating the display of user interface 114 to include the resultsor a link to the result along with the posting 218 in the postingsportion 312.

Notification of results are provided to one or more users associatedwith the posting (block 408). For instance, community forum module 212of service provider 106(m) may be configured to form a notification(e.g., notice/alert message 216) for communication to clients 102(n),users and/or accounts 118(a) associated with a posting for which results222 have been generated. The community forum module 212 may referenceassociations 220 stored as community forum data 214 to determine whichclients 102(n), users and/or accounts 118(a) are provided thenotification. Thus, notification of results 222 may be provided to aplurality of users via network 104, who through use of interface 114 anda selectable agree portion 316 have been associated with a posting 218corresponding to the results.

The notification of results may be communicated in a variety of ways,for instance via email, instant messaging, pager, voicemail, textmessages, or other suitable communication modes and/or alert messagessent to associated users and/or accounts 118(a) of the users. In animplementation, client data 124 associated with a user and account118(a) may specify one or more preferred modes of communication forreceiving the notification of results 222. These preferred modes may beincluded in or referenced based upon the associations 220 stored by theservice provider 106(m). Thus, community forum module 212 may further beconfigured to provide notification to different associated users viadifferent modes of communication, based upon specified preferences ofthe users.

The notification may indicate that results 222 for a posting 218 thatthe user has associated with are available, such as indicating that theresults have been posted in the community forum. Notification may alsobe configured with a selectable alert message or portion such ashypertext in an email, a selectable desktop pop-up message (“toast”)from a communication module 116(n) executing on a client 102(n), aselectable button or control, and so forth. Thus, the notification mayprovide an option selectable to navigate to the results 222 for acorresponding posting 218. In one or more implementation, the results222 may be provided directly in the notification in addition to or inlieu of indicating the results 222 have been posted in the communityforum with the original posting 218.

FIG. 5 depicts a procedure 500 in an exemplary implementation in whichassociations of users with postings in a community forum are utilized toassign priority to the postings. Based on the priority, the highestpriority issues may be identified and/or surfaced to technical supportstaff, service managers, or designated super users or experts. Duringthe discussion of the procedure 500 of FIG. 5, reference will also bemade to an exemplary implementation 600 of a user interface shown inFIG. 6.

One or more selectable portions are provided in a user interfaceconfigured for interaction of a plurality of the clients with acommunity forum, wherein each selectable portion corresponds to aposting and is selectable by a user to indicate agreement with theposting and to associate with the posting (block 502). For example, thecommunity forum module 212 of a service 106(m) may form a user interface114, which is communicated via network 104 to a plurality of clients102(n). Respective communication modules 116(n) of clients 102(n) mayoutput the interface 114 incorporated within another interface, such asimplementation 300 of user interface 302 for a browser depicted in FIG.3. Thus clients 102(n) may provide interactions with community forumdata 214 maintained by the service 106(m) via the interface 302 whichincludes interface 114. The interface 114 includes region 312 fordisplay of a plurality of postings 218 and provides a selectable agreeportion 316 adjacent to each of the postings 218. Referring to FIG. 6,another implementation 600 of user interface 302 which may be output bya communication module 116(n) of a client 102(n) is depicted, and whichincludes the interface 114 for interactions with the community forum.Implementation 600 also includes the region 312 for display of at leastone posting 218 and provides a selectable portion 316 adjacent to thepostings 218. In this case the agree portion 316 is illustrated ashaving the title or prompt “Me Too” as an alternative to the prompt“Agree” in FIG. 3.

As described previously with respect to FIG. 3, the agree portions 316in both FIG. 3 or FIG. 6 are selectable by a user of client 102(n) toindicate agreement with the corresponding posting (e.g., has the samequestion, agrees, and so forth) and to associate with the posting. Forinstance, selection of a agree portion 316 may cause communication ofdata via network 104 from a client 102(n) to service 106(m), which mayinclude an account id, email address, contact information,authentication token or data, or other suitable identifying datacorresponding to the client 102(n) or user of the client, and which maybe utilized by the service 106(m) to associate the user with thecorresponding posting 218. Based on the association via the selectableportions 316, answers or responses to a posting 218 may be communicatedto associated users.

The service 106(m) may then store a plurality of associations of userswith postings in a community forum responsive to communication of userselections of the portions from one or more clients (block 504). Forinstance community forum module 212 may receive communication of user'sselections of portions 316 via network. The communications contain datasufficient to associate the senders (e.g., client, user, account) with apostings 218 corresponding to the selected portions. For instance, thecommunication may include the identification of the posting 218 (aposting id, number and so forth) along with data identifying the user,an account of the users and so forth. Thus, community forum module 212may form associations 220 matching users (or clients) to postings 218,in response to communications of selections from a plurality of clientswhich are stored as community forum data 214 in memory 208(x) of sever202(x) at the service provider 106(m). Further, community forum module212 updates counters 224 corresponding to the postings 218 to track thenumber of associations 220 of users with corresponding postings 218.Thus, the service 106(m) may determine and track how many and whichusers and/or clients 102(n) are associated with postings 218 based onselection of portions 316 in a user interface.

Then, priority for one or more postings is determined based at least inpart on the associations (block 506). For instance, the associations 220and counters 224 may be analyzed or processed to determine whichpostings are most important. In an implementation priority reflects thenumber of associations 220, thus a posting 218 with 100 associations mayhave a higher priority than another posting with only 12 associations.

In other cases the counters 224 may be used along with other factors anduser data to determine priority. For instance, counters 224 may indicatethe number of associations 220, and the associations may include orreference additional client (or user) data 124, such as accounts 118(a), user profiles and the like which may be accessed and analyzed todetermine priority. A variety of data may be included in thedetermination of priority, such as which users are associated, the typeof users (business, home, and so forth), the number of associations(counters), a weight factor assigned to a particular forum or topic,and/or other weighted factors such as locations, types of client,timing, product types, and so on. For instance, if 100 business usersare associated with a posting 218 describing a virus problem with acritical application a relatively high priority may be determined.However if 10 home users are associated with a posting asking a questionregarding templates for a word processor, the priority may be lower. Avariety of other examples are contemplated.

Based on the priority of the posting, an alert is formed forcommunication to recipients enlisted to respond to postings (block 508).For instance, based on the priority the community forum module 212 mayform alerts or other messages (e.g., notice/alert messages 216) whichare configured to be communicated to designated recipients or groups ofrecipients such that they are made aware of and may respond to thepostings 218. Thus, based on a community of users association withpostings 218, the most critical problems, questions, issues and so forthmay be brought to the attention of those enlisted to provide results(e.g. answers, instructions, responses and so forth). The associationdata provided by selection of portions 316 is thus leveraged toprioritize responses to the corresponding postings 218.

An alert may be configured to be communicated via a variety of modessuch as email, instant messaging, text message, voicemail, desktopalerts (“toast”), pagers, or other suitable communication to alertdesignated recipients of the priority associated with postings. Thealerts may be generated for individual postings as priority changes, ona periodic basis for one or more posting, on demand and so forth.Further, the alerts may configured in a various was such as alerts forindividual postings, as summary reports listing a group of postings andassociated priorities (for example, a listing of active postingsarranged by order of priority), a report summarizing or presenting aselection of the highest priority postings (for example, the top 10 or100), and a variety other arrangement of priority data suitable fordesignated recipients to understand the priorities and to prioritizeresponses to respective postings.

Further threshold priority levels may be set to cause different sets ofrecipients to receive the alerts as the priority changes. For example,as priority of a posting 218 escalates, increasing levels of attentionmay be called to the postings, such as providing alerts to different setof recipients. Recipients may be arranged in a hierarchal chain whichmay for example include designated users or community experts, forummanagers or owner, service providers, customer or technical support,product managers, and so forth. Thus, alerts may be provided torecipients or individuals with increasing levels of authority or controlas the priority of posting increases.

For instance, referring again to FIG. 6, the forum in thisimplementation is directed to support of personal computers.Accordingly, the posting from “Adam” in portion 312 describes an issuewith hardware “My hard drive squeaks. It drives me crazy. Please Help.”The agree portion 316 is displayed and selectable such as by anotheruser “Bob” to indicate he also has the squeaky hard drive and toassociate with the posting. A variety of users and clients may indicatethrough selection of a agree portion 316 that they have the squeaky harddrive. Initially, responses to the posting may be in the form of repliesposted from the general community of users accessing and interactingwith the community forum. As priority increases, increasing levels ofenlisted support staff (recipients) may be alerted (e.g. receive anotice/alert message 216 formed by the service provider 106(m)). When 20people have the problem, the priority determined by community forummodule 212 may reach a first threshold which may cause community forummodule 212 to communicate an alert to a designated user or expertassociated with the community forum. When 100 people have the problem orare associated with the post, another threshold may be reached andalerts may be communicate to a customer or technical support team. If500 users are having the squeaky hard drive, the associated priority mayagain escalate and reach a threshold at which a managerial level such asa product manager or team receives an alert. Naturally, a variety ofthreshold levels may be set and matched or related to various groups ofrecipients, such that designated recipients are alerted when thecorresponding threshold priority is met, in accordance with thedescribed techniques

While an alert to recipients and specifically, support staff isdescribed it may be appreciated that a variety of other actions could beinitiated in response to escalating priority such as, notifying users orclients 102(n) of the escalated priority, updating the user interface toreflect the escalating priority, forming a assistance ticket or recordfor an automated support system, generating reports, performingselective processing of data dependent on the priority (e.g., thresholdpriority causes additional data to be gathered and analyzed by thecommunity forum module 212), and so forth. Thus, the describedtechniques are suited to surfacing issues raised in community forums toappropriate support personnel, such that the issues raised in postingsmay by resolved and results in the form of answers, feedback,instructions and so forth may be disseminated to those users associatedwith postings.

Referring again to FIG. 6 it is further noted, that the counters 224and/or priorities corresponding to postings may be communicated to aclient and/or presented to a user via a user interface 114. Forinstance, in FIG. 6 interface 114 is illustrated as including a numberof additional features, which may be provided for interactions with acommunity forum. For instance, the interface 114 includes an indication602 expressing the number of users who have selected the agree portion316 for the post. In this case 12 users have agreed. The indication 602corresponding to a posting may be generated based on an associatedcounter 224.

Additionally, a priority 604 portion is included to express thedetermined priority of the post. In this case the priority isrepresented as a status bar on a scale from Low to High. It may beappreciated that the priority may expressed in a variety of ways such ason a number scale (I to 10), according to textual categories (high, med,low), on a color scale (green, yellow, red) and so forth. Naturally, theindication 602 and priority portion 604 may be updated as more or fewerusers are associated with a posting 218.

Additional features illustrated in FIG.6 may include a answeredindication 606 to express whether the posting has associated results oranswers, a current user portion 608 to indicate the currentlyauthenticated user or account e.g., “Signed In As: Bob”, and a portion610 for displaying, linking to, or indicating replies posted by thecommunity of users in response to the posting 218, as well as a postreply portion 612 which may be selected by as user to input a reply tothe posting 218. In this instance, no replies are shown; however one ormore replies could be represented in the portion 610 in fall, in summaryform, as textual links providing access to the replies, and so forth.

FIG. 7 depicts a procedure 700 in which a client, in response to userselection of a portion of a user interface, communicates data to aservice sufficient to associate the user with corresponding postings ina community forum, such that the notification of an answer to atechnical problem described in a posting is received by the user. Duringthe discussion of the procedure 700 of FIG. 7, reference will also bemade to an exemplary implementation 800 of a user interface shown inFIG. 8.

A client outputs a user interface configured for interaction of a userwith a community forum directed to technical support for products andservices (block 702). For instance, client 102(n) may receive datasufficient to form implementation 800 of a user interface 302 of andoutput the user interface via communication module 116(n). In theimplementation 800, the interface 114 incorporated within thecommunication module interface 302 (such as a browser) providesinteraction with a forum configured for supporting personal computers.The personal computer support forum may be arranged for supporting oneor more of computer hardware; computing devices; peripheral devices;software applications including operating software, application modules(such as application for business/office productivity, networkmanagement, computer performance and security, multimedia, graphicdesign, entertainment, software development, communications (e.g. email,instant messaging), internet interactions, database, and/or other clientapplications), programming interfaces and so forth; configurations andsettings for personal computers or computing devices; hardware orsoftware set-up support; purchasing support, and so on. Naturally, aforum could also be directed to a variety of other products and/orservices.

The user interface displays at least one posting from the forumdescribing a technical problem with a product, and having acorresponding portion selectable to associate a user of the interfacewith the posting services (block 704). For instance the interface 114 ofFIG. 8 includes a portion 802 displaying a posting #999 which isdirected to a problem with a hard drive that squeaks. The portion 804has an associated agree portion 316 which as previously described isselectable to associate a user of the interface with the posting #999.Interface 114 of FIG. 8 also includes the current user portion 608indicating that “Bob” is signed-in to access and interact with thecommunity forum.

In response to user selection of the portion, data is communicated to aservice via a network to express that the user experiences the sameproblem and to associate the user with the posting (block 706). Forinstance when “Bob” selects the portion 316 in FIG. 8 communicationmodule 116(n) may be configured to form a communication to the serviceprovider 106(m). As noted, “Bob” is signed in to an account 118(a). Inimplementation, the account 118(a) may be used by “Bob” to access avariety of resources of one or more service providers 106(m) followingauthentication of credentials one time, e.g. a single sign-in. “Bob” maythen use the authenticated account 118(a) to access the variousassociated resources without re-authenticating.

Additionally, the association of “Bob” with the posting #999 occurswithout “Bob” reentering credentials, contact information, or so forth.Rather, communication module 116(n) and/or community forum module 212understands the identity of “Bob” based on “Bob” already havingsigned-in. Thus, data sufficient to associate “Bob” with the posting maybe obtained from data associated with Bob's account 118(a) such as anaccount id, email address, user profile, authentication data(credentials, tokens and so forth), and so forth. Communication may beformed to include additional information, such as the id of the posting,preferred communication modes, and so forth.

Alternatively, a communication from client 102(n) may identify the userand the service 106(m) may obtain any additional data associated withthe user and or account 118(a) to form an association 220, orsubsequently when an association 220 is used to provide results, setpriority, and so forth. Thus, selection of the portion 316 by “Bob” issufficient to cause the association, automatically and without furtherinput from “Bob”. Communication module 116(n) provides the communicationto the service provider 106(m) via network 104 which responds by storingan association 220 between “Bob” and posting #999.

Based on user selection of the portion, the user receives notificationof an answer to the technical problem generated in response to theposting (block 708). As noted, in response to “Bob's” selection, anassociation 220 is stored associating “Bob” with the hard drive problem.When an answer is generated, such as by support personal, a designatedcommunity expert, and so on, the association 220 may be referenced bythe service provider to determine which users to notify. Since “Bob” hasselected the portion 316 to associate with the problem, “Bob” willreceive the notification. For instance, notification (e.g. anotice/alert message 216 configured to provide results 222 to users)formed by community forum module 212 as described with respect to FIG. 4may be communicated to an email account 11 8(a) designated in theassociation 220, in a user profile of Bob's and so forth. Bob may thenaccess the notification via communication module 116(n) of the client102(n) or alternatively using one or more other client devicesconfigured to access the corresponding account 11 8(a). As noted, thenotification may also be provided in a variety other ways, whichincludes but is not limited to instant messaging, text message,voicemail, pager, desktop alerts (“toast”) and so on.

FIG. 8 further illustrates that the agree portion 316 may be selectivelydisplayed with different postings in a user interface. For instance,agree portion 316 is displayed adjacent to portion 802 which correspondsto a posting #999 for which the signed in user “Bob” has neitheroriginated or agreed with.

However, if a posting was originated by the signed-in user “Bob”, thenthe agree portion 316 may be omitted, grayed out, or otherwisedeemphasized. Portion 804 in FIG. 8 represents a posting #998 originatedby “Bob” and accordingly the agree portion 316 is hidden or omitted. Anindication 806 that the posting belongs to the signed in user may alsooptionally be provided in place of the agree portion 316.

Similarly, if a posting was already agreed to by the signed-in user“Bob” (previously selected a corresponding portion 316), then the agreeportion 316 may be omitted, grayed out, or otherwise deemphasized.Portion 806 in FIG. 8 represents a posting #997 which “Bob” alreadyagreed to and accordingly the agree portion 316 is hidden or omitted. Anindication 808 that the posting has already been agreed to by thesigned-in user may also optionally be provided in place of the agreeportion 316.

FIG. 9 depicts an exemplary implementation 900 of a user interface whichmay be formed by a service and output by a client for a posting onceresults have been generated, e.g., for an answered support question orissue. In this implementation, the interface includes a portion 902 fordisplaying the original posting, such as the problem described in post#999 with a squeaky hard drive. The interface also includes a portion904 for displaying an answer or other results generated by support staffor designees in response to the posting. In the depicted instance,support staff has generated results 222 which are instructionsindicating “Tighten internal chassis screws holding the hard drive. Seepage 6 of owners manual.” The results 222 may be stored as communityforum data 214 and displayed in the portion 904 of a user interface,when posting #999 is accessed by a client 102(n). Naturally, the results222 may have been produced by support staff based upon or following analert message (e.g., notice/alert message 216 configured to communicatepriorities of associated postings 218 to designated recipients) sent todesignated support staff in response to a priority threshold triggerreached for posting #999, as described with respect to FIG. 5. Theportion 904 may display the full results 222, links to the results 222and/or external sources of information, a summary and so forth. Inaddition, when a posting has been answered, the agree portion 316 may beomitted, grayed out, or otherwise deemphasized. An indication 906 thatthe posting has been answered may also optionally be provided.

Conclusion

Although the invention has been described in language specific tostructural features and/or methodological acts, it is to be understoodthat the invention defined in the appended claims is not necessarilylimited to the specific features or acts described. Rather, the specificfeatures and acts are disclosed as exemplary forms of implementing theclaimed invention.

1. A method comprising: forming a user interface configured to expose acommunity forum to a plurality of clients such that the clients mayinteract with postings in the forum via a network; providing in the userinterface a selectable portion associated with at least one posting thatis selectable by a user to: express agreement with the posting; and toassociate with the posting; and responsive to a selection by the user ofone said portion, store data associating the user with the correspondingposting, such that when a result corresponding to the respective postingis generated the user is automatically set to receive notification ofthe result.
 2. A method as described in claim 1 further comprising:generating a result associated with one said posting; and forming anotification of the result for communication via a network to aplurality of users associated with the posting by selection of acorresponding portion, wherein the notification indicates that theresult is accessible in the community forum.
 3. A method as described inclaim 2, wherein the notification is provided to the plurality of usersusing one or more mode of communication selected from the groupconsisting of: email; instant messaging; text messaging; desktop alerts;pager; and voicemail.
 4. A method as described in claim 3, wherein atleast two different communication modes are used to notify two of moreusers associated with a posting, in accordance with preferredcommunication modes specified by the users.
 5. A method as described inclaim 1, wherein the data associating the user with the correspondingposting comprises a user account identifier identifying a user accountused to access the community forum and configured to provide the useraccess to a plurality of network resources from a plurality of serviceproviders upon a single authentication of the user.
 6. A method asdescribed in claim 1, wherein selection of the portion causes updatingof a counter configured to track the number of users associated with aposting.
 7. A method as described in claim 1, wherein associations ofone or more users to a posting are referenced to determine the users towhich notification is provided, when a result is obtained for theposting.
 8. A method as described in claim 1, wherein the postingdescribes a customer problem with a product and the result includes ananswer to the customer problem.
 9. A method as described in claim 1,wherein the posting describes a technical problem with an applicationmodule for a computing device and the result includes supportinstructions for troubleshooting the problem.
 10. A method comprising:providing one or more selectable portions of a user interface configuredfor interaction of a plurality of clients with a community forum,wherein each portion corresponds to a posting in the community forum andis selectable by a user to: express agreement with the posting; and toassociate with the posting; storing a plurality of associations of userswith postings in the community forum in response to user selections ofthe one or more selectable portions via the plurality of clients;determining the priority of one or more postings based uponcorresponding associations, and based upon the determined priority,forming an alert for communication to one or more recipients enlisted toa generate responses to the one or more postings.
 11. A method asdescribed in claim 10, wherein selection of a portion causes updating ofa counter configured to track the number of users associated with acorresponding posting, and the priority of the posting is determinedbased upon the counter.
 12. A method as described in claim 10, whereingroups of recipients are arranged to correspond to successive thresholdlevels of priority for one or more posting, such that when priority ofthe respective posting escalates to reach each threshold level, thecorresponding group of recipients is alerted.
 13. A method as describedin claim 10, wherein the alert is configured to present the priority forone or more postings to recipients, such that the recipients mayprioritize their responses to the postings.
 14. A method as described inclaim 10, wherein the recipients enlisted to generate responses topostings include one o-r more of community experts, forum managers,customer service personnel, and technical support staff.
 15. A method asdescribed in claim 10, wherein: the community forum is directed tosupport for computing devices and software; at least one postingdescribes a technical problem with an application module for a computingdevice; and a corresponding response generated by the one or morerecipients comprises support instructions for troubleshooting thetechnical problem with the application module.
 16. A method comprising:outputting on a client a user interface configured for interaction of auser with a community forum directed to technical support of one or moreproducts and services; displaying via the user interface at least oneposting describing a technical problem with a product and a portioncorresponding to the posting selectable to associate the user of theuser interface with the posting; and in response to user selection ofthe portion, forum a message for communication to a service via anetwork having data sufficient to: express that the user experiences thetechnical problem; and associate the user with the posting.
 17. A methodas described in claim 16 further comprising, receiving notification fromthe service when an answer to the technical problem is generated inresponse to the posting based upon association of the user with theposting via the users' selection of the portion.
 18. A method asdescribed in claim 16 wherein the service in response to thecommunicated data, stores an association of the user to the posting andupdates a counter configured to track the number of users associatedwith the posting.
 19. A method as described in claim 17, wherein theposting describes a technical problem with an application module for acomputing device and the answer includes support instructions fortroubleshooting the problem.
 20. A method as described in claim 17,wherein the answer corresponding to the posting is generated by supportstaff enlisted to provide answers to technical problems with theproducts and services raised in the community forum.